The invention relates to a method and apparatus for the production of a textile strip, by preparing and aftertreating an intermediate product, with the product textile strip being a new article of manufacture and having long weft elements, especially long weft threads, provided diagonally to the strip length, intersecting one another, and connected by longitudinal rows of stitches.
Furthermore, the invention relates to a product textile strip as an article of manufacture and, produced according to the method of the invention, as well as to a device on a warp knitting machine, particularly a stitch knitting machine, having at least one movable weft laying device, for working long weft elements or weft threads, which extend over the entire working width, into the textile strip.
To connect weft elements with stitch forming warp threads, a warp knitting machine uses a conventional needle system.
A method is known for the production of thread knitted textile strips with diagonally running long weft threads on a warp knitting machine, as well as thread knitting machines which, when being used, make it necessary to design the operative width of the weft laying device, so that the distance from the first to the last thread of the weft thread group to be placed corresponds to a one to three and a half time expansion of the working width of the machine (Jap. patent application 42-67693).
If zig-zag like long weft threads are to intersect at an angle of 90.degree., or if the angle between the weft threads and a fictitious straight line, extending at right angles to the edge of the first fabric, is to be 45.degree., the operative width of the weft laying device (which corresponds to the width of the long weft thread group to be placed) is twice as long as the working width of the machine. If the angle, formed by the long weft threads with the fictitious straight line is 60.degree., then the operative width of the weft laying device has to be approximately three and a half times the working width. At a working width of 3.5 m, which is the customary width for thread knitting machines, the weft laying device would have to be more than 10 m wide, and correspondingly massive.
Such a weft laying device results in a relatively slow mode of operation, which in most cases is not economically justifiable.
The described method is accomplished by a weft laying device, which moves back and forth at right angles in relation to the length of the textile strip. The placed group of long weft threads is guided by two weft thread transport means, into which the long weft threads are hung in the direction of a stitch formation zone, at which point the weft threads join the warp threads, forming a textile strip.